There is No Cure for Curiosity
by NineTimesNamed
Summary: In Gotham City people tell themselves stories. Stories like "the people doing bad things are the Bad Guys". Tayna knows better; the fearful truth is that the people doing bad things are ordinary people. Being an information broker is a dangerous game, but she plays it well. She thought she had it all figured out- until she met HIM. Game on.
1. I do not like my state of mind

**A/N: Here you have it. The revised chapter.** **SUMMARY OF THINGS CHANGED:** All mention of the Riddler as a Rogue has been removed. Instead, we have mention of the mysterious 'Broker', a superior and rival in the information trade to our lovely OC, Tayna Nabokov. Hobbes is still around, but instead of the Prince of Puzzles, he works for Roman Sionis. This will be useful to the plot later on. There is further exposition on what Tayna does as a job, as well as why she does it. She's become more impressive yet also a little more arrogant as a character. Since this is before the Joker, before the Batman is a big deal, and before the Riddler becomes a Rogue, she is also just a little naive to the ways of Gotham. **_Disclaimer: I don't own Batman or any copyrighted content associated with Batman._**

* * *

 _"Four be the things I am wiser to know:_  
 _Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe._  
 _Four be the things I'd been better without:_  
 _Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt._  
 _Three be the things I shall never attain:_  
 _Envy, content, and sufficient champagne._  
 _Three be the things I shall have till I die:_  
 _Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye."_

By Dorothy Parker

* * *

They say that curiosity is the beginning and end for every great mind. I don't know much about endings, it's hard to say something has ended when the world keeps turning. In my job, things are always moving. Data is always becoming obsolete, players are always falling behind in the great information Game. The human mind is naturally inclined to think of things finishing. We obsess over our own endings, how will our name survive us? How will we go out? Will it be with a bang? A whimper?

Even when we talk about creation, there are endings- All of history was created, and then came Man.

But endings are illusory; after that first man came another, and after you will follow someone else. The story only continues, the actors change costumes, the curtain draws, and someone in the wings starts dragging out the props for the next scene. There isn't much to be said about endings, because it's really just another word for 'change'. You could say death is the end, but your body then rots, teeming with life of a different kind.

The one thing that is constant, and undeniable, is a good start; beginnings are a fact of life. After all, it all had to start somewhere- and for me, that beginning was in curiosity.

"You will die if you go on tonight's run, find a way out of it."

"How do you know that, miss?"

In every story, there are always the thugs. Big, brutish men with hands like sledgehammers, little eyes, and short haircuts. The thugs are always stupid, piggy men. Every time the female heroine goes to a bar, the thug is the guy hitting on her- and how _dare_ he hit on her. She always says something sufficiently catty or knees him in the unmentionables(never mind the poor man just thought she was beautiful, never mind that most social interactions only play out that way in someone's head). He's always the guy left to tie the good guy up, guard him, or teach him a lesson- and he _always_ gets outsmarted.

"Do you see the crystal ball Jeffrey?"

"Yes, Miss"

"Make a deduction, Jeffrey. Don't go on tonight's run, and pay me now, in case you're stupid enough not to take my advice."

Jeffrey, the Thug, was currently sitting in the 'office' of one Tayna Nabokov. Yours truly. At first, I had tried to get away with leaving the room outfitted like a normal office, but when Thugs started dropping left and right, it was time to make a change. Nobody believes you're a _real_ fortune teller unless you play the part. Now, the small room was draped in various dark linens, most of them a deep red or purple- smoke hung in the air, twirling upward from a stick of incense that the 'fortune teller' had lit. A few paltry cushions littered the floor. There wasn't any light save for the candles- after all, my 'office' was simply a room I'd found in one of the many abandoned buildings of the Narrows. There was no electricity.

I also didn't have to pay rent or put anything in my name, so you know, that's a plus.

* * *

 _"There isn't gonna be a fire brigade when those candles light up" Hobbes had grunted when he first saw the place. But he hadn't argued- most people learned not to argue with me after hanging around. He says I'm insufferable, and even more so after winning an argument._

* * *

I know of a different Thug than the one everyone else knows. He is a poor man, too poor to get an education save for the one every kid gets on Gotham's streets. His alma mater is his mother's alcoholism. He graduated cum laude with a degree in "Surviving The Ghetto" with a Minor in "Shitty Upbringing". He didn't know how to talk to people, let alone the opposite sex, and his only social interaction came from other Thugs in whichever gang he'd joined for protection. He came to the fortune teller of the Narrows for information (though he didn't know it) and drugs, which he paid for with information (again, unknowingly) and money.

Jeffrey is a thug, lower case 'T', one of Gotham's; not some ogre from a story, but a human being, and that's how I see him. That's how I stay alive. I don't let the Story overpower my common sense; everybody has a motivation, everybody has a reason; every reason can be manipulated. A thug's reason is survival, and so they come to me to have their fortunes told- at first in only a trickle, but when enough of the superstitious started dodging figurative bullets, a flood.

If he took my advice and played sick instead of participating in the Falcone's raid tonight (there were plenty men to replace him if he didn't show up), then he wouldn't get caught in the trap Two Face had set inside the target warehouse- twenty armed enemies all waiting to take on Penguin's strike team of ten. For this essential service, he paid me ninety dollars (ninety was just ten shy of 100, but for whatever reason, they were always more willing to pay ninety dollars). He then bought some drugs and chatted for a while, loosening up now that the air of mysticism cleared and Tayna the Fortune Teller became just another drug dealer- in the process, letting slip that Roman Sionis was planning a heist at Gotham Bank, thus distracting Gotham's newest Player- 'the bat-man'. Penguin would use that opportunity to steal a cache of weapons that the Black Mask had hidden by the wharf. This advice would no doubt rake in around one thousand dollars ( more like 900$, if I sell it to ten people on average, since that ten dollar difference was important when convincing the hired muscle to spend their hard earned cash).

Many people would use my position to make more money than that, to sell the information to one of the big Players. Many people before me have died doing exactly that. The only way being an information broker is profitable is if that information never reaches the ears of someone who can use it to alter events. It's much safer and much less noticeable to sell the information to the little guy- the pawns caught in the crosshairs of the big guy's plans. Lives get saved, but never enough to tip the balance, never enough to draw attention. And because the little guy usually isn't the smart guy, they were superstitious enough to believe they were getting fortunes- or just grateful enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

This was two birds with one stone; because nobody saw me as an information broker, they never watched their words around me, and because I only dealt with the lowest common denominator, none of the big guys ever knew there was someone collecting information on them. Basically, I existed at the bottom of a long chain of people underestimating one another- the Rogues of Gotham underestimated the information that their thugs had, and the thugs of Gotham assumed that what they were dealing with was simply a drug dealer with a penchant for telling accurate fortunes.

After buying his pot and hanging around for a little while, Jeffrey got up and left. I waited a while to see if anyone else would knock on my door tonight, then sighed and stood up. It was almost time to go, anyway. I went around, blowing out each of my candles, one by one. As the last flame went out a rapping on one of the curtain-hidden windows sounded out. All the windows were covered with the coloured cloth- partially for effect, partially for privacy, but mostly because it was getting cold outside. I went to the window and pulled aside some fabric.

"Hey girlie, ready to be walked home?" Hobbes peered up at me from underneath the window, cigarette clenched in his teeth. Most people would have classified him as a thug like all the others- after all, he worked for crime bosses and looked like a dangerous brick wall. I had known better from the second he walked into my office. His teeth were too clean, though a little crooked, and his fingernails were well-trimmed. His clothes were raggedy to be sure, but they, too, were kept clean and smelled like cheap laundry detergent. Otherwise, he had dark eyes, dark hair, and an unremarkable face.

He was clearly someone ambitious, trying to rise up from the murk of the Narrows. To me, that showed he was someone with a bit of wit. That's why he worked for two crime bosses, and not just one. Hobbes worked for both the Penguin and the Black Mask, but his loyalties lay only with me. He, like me, was someone who played the Game.

He and I had met in the early days; Penguin had sent him to inspect my joint- I had been incautious and used my information to advise one too many of the opposition's goons. One of Penguin's informants had caught wind of me and hinted to his boss that there was someone who might know more than they should. So Hobbes showed up, clean-toothed and smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, acting like he wanted his fortune told. Luckily, my lack of caution did not mean I was stupid, just young- after a bit of back and forth questioning, I had realized what he was. We came to an… arrangement: as long as I never outed him to Sionis as a spy, he would go home and tell Penguin that I was just a lucky fortune teller, nothing to worry about. These days, we were more like friends than mutual blackmailers- he walked me home every day.

* * *

" _If I have to trust you with my secret." The man grunted, eyes squinting in thought. "Then I have to make sure ya don't die, girlie. Yer just a little thing, even though you're too clever for yer own good. You get in the hands of the wrong type, and they'll squeeze all sorts of things out of ya." I schooled my expression and smiled, slow and lazy, and looked up at him from behind my crystal ball._

" _Are you saying you aren't the wrong type, Mr. Hobbes?"_

" _Whatever you say, girlie." He half-replied. And that was that._

* * *

As we walked home through the darkening streets, we chatted about things.

"Weather's getting cold again." He muttered, by way of conversation.

"Do you have enough warm clothes?"

"Yes, mother." I frowned.

"Don't be like that, I can't have my bodyguard freezing to death this winter, now can I?" He grumbled something inaudible, but I didn't pursue the point. "Are you going on that heist tomorrow night?" For that I got a sharp look, and a quick scan of our surroundings. He didn't like when I mentioned the information I had out loud, unfiltered by spooky voices or crystal balls. After he was sure that the rain slicked streets were truly empty, taking a moment to peer through the steam that had begun to vent from the city's pores, he replied.

"No, too public. All hands on deck, but the officers have to stay away from the gunfire, in case another Rogue is around. Mr. Sionis protects his 'assets'. I'm on guard duty, with my little brother."

There, a prick of fear; I knew this day would come. My lips moved, numb, while the world shrunk into a pinprick in the distance. I watched myself ask him the question, though I already knew the answer.

"Will you be on the wharf?"

This was the moment I was going to fuck it all up. I had become friends with someone involved in the Game. That was against the rules I had set out for myself when I'd become a Player myself. Albert Einstein was quoted as once saying "You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else." I thought that because I had been playing better than anyone else, darting like a fish, unnoticed, through the currents of Gotham's underworld, that I could afford to break a rule. Of course not. The rules were everything.

Rule number one was don't get noticed.

Rule number two was don't make friends with the Players.

I saw my mistake, I knew that tonight, I would make a second one, willingly. That was the danger of friends.

"Don't go."

* * *

That night, when I got home, I cleaned my apartment. Then I got on my computer, and deleted everything. To be an information broker, you need to be smart with tech as well as with people, and I was pretty damn smart. In school, I had studied Game Theory, with a Minor in Computer Programming. I doubt anyone had expected me to use my knowledge like this, but this is the only way it felt useful. I saved people's lives, and I made money.

We live in a world where you grow up watching adults lie to one another, accuse each other of cheating, or of taking bribes; knowing that nobody was really trustworthy, and hating that you couldn't separate the good from the bad in people. After living life in the dark, there's nothing like having absolute knowledge, it makes you finally feel like you can trust people. It is a cheat, a hack, a backdoor.

After all, trust is just a subjective measurement of an individual's predictability. Most people guess how trustworthy a politician, police commander, or friend might be.

I **_know_**.

Computers are a fantastic tool in this, but they aren't like passed notes or the exploding sunglasses from Mission Impossible; they always left a trail. No matter how careful you are, if someone smart gets their hands on your hardware, you're screwed.

The Game that I've been mentioning is a very old game, older than those board games they found in King Tut's tomb. Older than prostitution. It's the Information Game. Once you play a little, you can't stop- because you know too much, and all the other Players are after you. It's a cutthroat game; more competitive than any race. If you fall behind, if your information becomes out of date, you tend to stay behind, watching the backs of those in the know. The cruelest fate for any player of the Game is to fall behind, have their knowledge become obsolete. It's like being in on the world's joke for once in your life, then one day waking up and noticing that all your friends are laughing over this thing you weren't around for. Giggling and saying "Remember when x did y? That was so funny!" and then saying something lame like "You had to be there" when you try and join in. Except the joke is deadly and might mean you're getting shot in the head as a spy next week.

Luckily, I had never fallen behind. I stayed in the upper echelons. I wasn't the best- the best was some kind of computer genius only known as The Broker, but I was close. That wasn't the safeast place to be, though. As the second in the city, I was a direct threat to The Broker himself; a minor one, but one that he would quickly eliminate if he could. It was something that kept me up at night sometimes.

You know when your enemy's only name is their job title, you're facing up against a badass. Who would you want to face in the fist fight- a judge, or The Judge?

 _Exactly._

For the first time since I'd taken second place in Gotham's Game, though, I felt truly scared. Paranoid. Terrified. Up until now I'd been squeaky clean, but now two guards- the ONLY two guards- of an important weapons cache are going to magically vanish from duty right before a heist. Everyone who knew anything about the Game would have their eyes on this event. If I were on the outside looking in, I'd be asking "Where did they get that information?".

So I took out all my RAM, all my memory, every replaceable chip on my computer, and I did what any paranoid information broker in the country's crime capital would do.

I lit it all on fire.


	2. I'm bitter, querulous, unkind

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of the** **Batman franchise, except for my own additions.**

 **A/N:**

 **SUMMARY OF CHANGES:**

 **Eddie no longer meets Tom face-to-face. Further exposition on his character and why he's doing what he is doing.**

* * *

 _"The citizen is becoming a pawn in a game where nobody knows the rules, where everybody consequently doubts that there are rules at all, and where the vocabulary has been diminished to such an extent that nobody is even sure what the **game** is all about.:_

Andrew Eldritch

* * *

Every maniac started sane. This is something that is rarely considered when viewing the end product. For Edward Nashton, he was more than sane, he was super-sane. The man had delved so deep into his own sanity- patterns, information, the mathematics of the world, that he had come out the other side. He wasn't insane, no, he was in-sane; he'd built a castle there made of nothing but connections and deductions. Anyone peeking into that world of corkscrewing thoughts and logical leaps would have been driven crazy by the gymnastics his frontal lobe underwent as his thoughts slowly gyrated him through the rational world and out the other end.

Being smart means you recognize the underlying patterns of the world; the significance of all things.

But it takes a _genius_ to recognize that _nothing_ holds significance; no moral, no ethics, just the Truth.

Enter Edward Nashton; the monomaniac.

Consider for a moment the actual condition of monomania; it was described in the early nineteenth century as "involuntary, irresistible, and instinctive activity" that "chained the patient to actions that neither reason nor emotion have originated, that conscience rejects, and will cannot suppress." Monomaniacs were described later as otherwise sane individuals, locked into thoughts that are not theirs by choice. Given that definition, that meant that a monomaniac when not being influenced by their compulsion (in this case riddles) was entirely sane (and in this case, furious).

So his office was clean, spartan, and functional. It was everything he needed to think, yet already there were signs of what was to come. Question marks doodled at the corner of his handwritten notes, odd little 'poems' found stuffed into his jacket pockets, but everyone has to fall of the sanity wagon sometimes, and Edward's wagon was traveling at Mach 5. The world did not know it, but it would be a spectacular crash. But that comes later. For now, he is just Mr. Nashton, head of the GCPD Cyber Crimes Division.

Supplementary to his job were his activities as Gotham's "Broker"; he did not yet view these two as mutually exclusive. The thuglike cops who patrolled the streets were 'protectors of the peace', but in Cyber Crimes, they protected the Truth. Edward didn't see any harm in violating the law in pursuit of that, especially when his colleagues did so in pursuit of stuffing their own pockets. Already he was finding corruption and lies where the world would have remained blind if he had stuck to the law. Because of him, Gotham would know the Truth.

It was midnight, and currently, he was The Broker (It was a silly name, he'd have to find a better one, later.), on one of his hacked CCTV feeds, he was watching a clip of two brothers, clearly meant to guard a door, seen walking away from said door ten minutes before it was kicked down and invaded by some heavily armed individuals.

It was very peculiar. He had already been puzzling over it for an hour. Halfway through, he'd gotten an itch. It meant he wanted to know- HAD to know- what they knew. How did they figure out they were about to be overwhelmed? Where was their information coming from? Someone had tapped a valuable seam of data, and he itched to take it from them.

He hated not being in on a secret.

He already had a suspicion as to who it was, which excited him. Pulse/Spill, a broker of considerable knowledge and what appeared to be a large network, had been a dog at his heels for quite some time. What's more is that while the knowledge they brokered seemed to indicate an extensive network of spies and informants, there was never any sign of such a network. It should have been impossible; a conspiracy is only as strong as its' weakest link, and with a network so big, there should have been plenty. It was even in their online tag; Pulse/Spill was a play on words of the Norwegian word 'puslespill'.

Puzzle.

Whoever this Pulse/Spill was, they were a thorn in his side, an itch to be scratched.

He _knew_ that it shouldn't bother him, seeing as he only had become 'The Broker' for the purpose of uncovering the truth, but something about having a rival irked him. It felt like a threat, to his knowledge, to his power. He kept telling himself that his power didn't matter, but as he delved more and more into the world of information back channels, he had come to realize that power made all the difference. He used to have to blackmail thugs to get the information they held, or execute them in various ways, usually involving a technological 'accident'. Now the very fear of his name caused them to open up and spill like a skull cracked by 200 Newtons of malfunctioning construction equipment. ( _that had been a personal favorite_ ). His job had become very easy in recent months.

Yes, power was important, and Pulse/Spill was a threat. ( _not to his ego, rational men don't HAVE egos_ )

That was why he was currently tapped into one Tom Hobbes' cellphone lines- it was a burner phone, not meant to be used for more than two weeks to avoid being tracked, but that had only provided Edward a ten minute hurdle of digging through camera feeds and purchases before he found where the fool had bought his number. He turned on the phone's speaker, causing an influx of loud white noise, mainly to get the troglodyte's attention. He heard the man cursing and the rustling of clothes as he fished his phone out and tried to turn it off.

"Mr. Hobbes …" He began- the came a long and chilling silence. "You were not at your post tonight."

"You have, until this point, have in various ways impressed upon me your entirely unremarkable intelligence. In fact, I would have to say that looking at your recorded behavior until today, I would have suspected you to have the intelligence of, oh…. let's say…" He leaned back and began to tap his chin, playacting at considering his next words carefully, though his prey could not see him. "A well-trained chimpanzee." Venomous sarcasm dripped into puddles from every word. The thug on the other line had the good sense to at least remain silent. Again, he let the silence hang before continuing on, switching from a deep and dangerous baritone, to a lighter, more jovial voice.

"And yet here I find myself surprised! You seem to have a shred of smarts after all. Perhaps you didn't get the short end of both the ugly and the stupid stick!" At this he heard a derisive snort from the other end. He frowned, not liking the reaction he was getting. No matter, the knuckle-dragger would fear him yet. "But who am I kidding." Nashton chortled "We both know you didn't come by your smarts naturally."

"Who the fuck is this?" Came the snarl from the other end. Edward calmly smiled; he must have hit a nerve- so the informant was someone he knew.

"I believe your 'kind' call me 'The Broker'. While it isn't the most inventive of names, for now, it is also what you may call me."

Another long silence. So whoever this 'Hobbes' was had heard of him. That was good, it would make this go smoother. He had already electrocuted enough thugs to get his point across in the criminal underworld; he didn't just deal in information, he dealt in death, too.

He decided to cut straight to the chase. He had more important work to do- people to blackmail, identity thefts to solve, and he needed to know how Tom Hobbes came by his precious knowledge fast; so he could get on with strategizing. Preferably without spending any more time threatening him, a tasteless method, but one that Edward Nashton never shied from. He uncrossed his fingers and laid them lightly on his desk.

"I can forgive a man for dealing in information, Mr. Hobbes, but not for forgetting to share it with me. Now, this can go one of two ways-"

"I will give you my informant if you let me and my brother live. She has information coming in on all the bosses."

There was a long silence as Nashton processed this goon's words. The arrogant little peon was trying to make a deal! And he had interrupted him.

(Pulse/Spill was a she?)

"I find that highly unlikely, Mr. Hobbes." He wasn't sure what he doubted the most; that the peon know Pulse/Spill directly, or that they were female. While he looked down on both genders equally, he'd always been under the impression that women were weak-willed, and emotional.

"It's true!" Edward could hear the desperation in the man's voice.. He'd latched on to something that might save his skin, and was willing to say anything. Perhaps even the truth, Edward mused to himself while casually checking his nails for dirt. Silence was often the best motivator for people to share more information. "She has informants everywhere, like you! And nobody knows she exists! I'll give her to you, and you can take her network!"

"What makes you think I want her network? I doubt your informant is a player of any great talent or measure. If she had a network of any consequence, I would know about it" Now it was time to go in for the kill; was this man's source truly Pulse/Spill? Or simply a small fry, soon to be eaten by the sharks? Eager to tell him what he wanted to hear, the dunce laid all his cards on the table.

"But she doesn't use it! She only sells it to little guys like me, guys who don't make a difference from knowing- she's smart, Mr. Broker, like you!" The pissant was getting ahead of himself. But still…. it was an intriguing concept. His confession made it all the more likely that his informant was Pulse/Spill, but it didn't explain why he- she- he corrected himself- had slipped up. Was it intentional? A feint? If what Tom Hobbes said was true, then a Player like that truly would have slipped under Edward's radar- simply by nature of appearing inconsequential. 'A snake in the grass- eating only mice until something big walks by'. He thought to himself. He had no doubt now that Pulse/Spill was truly a threat- the only people who flew that low carrying that much information were people like him. People with big plans. He itched all over. He HAD to know if what the moron was saying was true.

Consider a moment the monomaniac.

So the man named Tom Hobbes lived through another night he should have died on, and Edward Nashton began to plan a new move in the Game.


	3. I hate my legs, I hate my hands

**A/N:**

SUMMARY OF CHANGES:

Essentially, the Riddler doesn't show up at Tayna's office. Instead, the police do!

* * *

"One rarely falls in love without being as much attracted to what is interestingly wrong with someone as what is objectively healthy."  
-Alain de Bolton

* * *

Did you know that it is clinically possible to think yourself to death? To ponder and rave and machinate yourself into such an existential corner, that your chances of survival are slim? It is actually a commonly accepted fact, but very rarely a consciously realized one. Very few people understand thinking to be dangerous in itself; they see it as being able to get you into dangerous situations, sure, but not to be inherently perilous. Ask Vincent Van Gogh what he thought on the matter. Ask Kurt Cobain.

If you think too much, and you have nothing bad to think about, well, then you're a thoughtful idiot. No; thinkers are almost notoriously short-lived, short fused, and short on sanity. If intelligence is murder, then boredom is its' smoking gun. You ask Boredom where he saw me last and he'll hide a bloody knife behind his back, smile, and say "Who?". And you'll probably believe him. It's a hard case to make that people can be bored to death, but think on this:

A study conducted in 2010 by cognitive epidemiologists found that highly gifted students aged 15-16 had a nearly four times increased likelihood of developing bipolar disorder later in life. In another, larger study, done by Edinburgh University researchers, the results showed that the relationship between hospitalizations for bipolar and other illnesses was directly linked to having a higher IQ.

In short: being smart means you're likely to either die or go mad.

I pondered all this as I packed up my things into boxes. As I folded all my shirts and pants into small, neat, earth-toned stacks I ruminated on the consequences of my boredom. My itch for engagement, to put my whirring mind to use; that is what had landed me here. I had been so bored- sure, like everyone I had a tumultuous background, full of its' own personal hurts, but that isn't what I'd latched on to to define me. I didn't require some painful back story to be me- because even if I had lived free of pain, the boredom would still be there, gun cocked, and that is what defined me.

No, I concluded, as I was stacking my dishes in a box, filling the spaces between with balled up newspaper. Being sick of mindless drudgery is what had called me to the Narrows, involved me in the criminals' dangerous games. I sighed and stood up, looking around the apartment. It was a nice apartment. (What, you thought because I worked in the Narrows that I would live there? )

Gross.

Before I had packed it up it had been a warm little nest, filled with pillows and blankets and books- evidence of my many hobbies had littered the shelves and walls; pinned insects, still-drying oil paintings, unfinished chess problems. Now, it was like every apartment in my building, hell, likely every apartment on the block. Just another upper-class student's apartment, waiting for mommy and daddy to move sweet Suzie in for her first year away from home. All my boxes sat in front of my battered green couch, in the center of the room. There were no suitcases, and there was not a moving truck waiting outside.

I'll explain later, if I live that long

My final act was to pour a pour a pot of tea into my thermos, and as an afterthought I fished two teacups with matching saucers out of a nearby box. I grabbed my keys, leaving my spares on the coffee table where my box of dried insects had been placed, and walked out the door, making sure to lock it behind me. I exhaled, feeling lighter. Next, I headed to the gym, deciding to opt out of a subway ride in lieu of enjoying the morning air.

The gym I was headed to was in a slightly upper-middle class neighborhood. One of those 24-hour gigs, though god knows who is using the extra 12 hours those places are open. It had a sauna and businessmen with expensive silver laptops frequenting its' little raw juice bar cafe, sipping wheat grass concoctions that would make Macbeth's witches gag. It had been exactly what I needed.

The air was sharp and bracing, fresher than when the heat lets all of a city's nasty fumes into the air. I closed my eyes every few blocks, stopped walking, and would breathe it in, looking at all the faces around me, pink-cheeked and breath fogging- it was so comforting to see so many people living around me. It was so comforting to know that they would probably be happy in the short, boring lives afforded to them. I smiled and walked on.

Inside the gym, they recognized me by name. I occasionally worked out here, just to maintain the image of being anything but what I was. The illusion that I was just another well-off student, that I liked wheatgrass; and most importantly, that I wasn't just here for the locker space. The truth was that I was a drug dealer and a criminal, and I was definitely just here for the locker space. There it was, trusty old #42;

My drugs cache.

Nobody ever thinks to check a drug dealer's gym for drugs, at least, not a drug dealer as small time as me. I never bought a lot, kept a lot, or sold a lot. Just enough to give my pockets a little extra padding, and nothing stronger than your basic hallucinogens. Nothing addictive, and therefore, nothing the police cared too much about. Usually I stopped by to grab a few baggies, just enough so that if I were caught, it would be a criminal and not a federal offense; this time, I grabbed the whole duffel bag. A nice, pre-packaged ten year sentence, slung over my left shoulder.

Five minutes later, I was dumping the whole thing down a manhole cover, wondering hysterically if Killer Croc was out of Arkham, and if he'd like the drugs. I'd left a note for him, just in case; my own little joke to myself.

And then I was were my true life had always been, in my office. The teacups sat primly in their saucers on the coffee table I had salvaged over the summer. It had been thrown out because one of the legs had broken (I propped it up with a copy of "War and Peace"; Tolstoy was my kind of coffee table reading- in that nobody reads it and it makes for good furniture. Like the rest of the room, like the information I traded, like the people who came in, it was a found thing- lost and underestimated and thrown to the gutter of the Narrows, where I had picked it up. This office sat at the center of it all, it had been, when my curiosity overcame my boredom and fear, where my life began. And, now, possibly, it would be the cause of my story's end.

* * *

"Don't go."

"What?"

"Both you and your brother will be killed in a raid by Penguin's men." Hobbes stopped and stood quietly, smoke trickling from his mouth as he squinted at me in the dying light. Ash fell off the tip of his cigarette but he didn't move.

* * *

I took a deep breath, preparing for the first customers of the day. Today I had nothing to sell them but fortunes, all other products were swimming with the Crocs. Jeffrey from yesterday was the first to come inside. He only came to thank me for saving his life yesterday. Tayna the fortune teller spoke up.

"It was not I that saved your life, Jeffrey, but the fates." She said, in a properly mysterious voice. He tried to give me some more money, for saving his life, money that I'd normally accept, but today, I just pushed it away. The tones of the otherworld dropped from my voice when I told him to treat himself to some groceries, or a new pair of shoes. He smiled at me then, his eyes crinkling, and it was the sweetest smile I'd ever seen.

* * *

"If I don't show up, the Mask will know somethin' is fishy. If both of us don't show, he'll know fer sure we knew the attack was coming; he'll kill us both, after first makin' sure we scream out your name, girlie."

He was right, of course, which was why I'd been trying to avoid this kind of thing. There would be no avoiding my discovery. But that was no longer the goal; the goal was keeping Hobbes alive. I knew he couldn't leave town, he didn't have the money and this is where his ambitions were. He couldn't just lay low and hope the Black Mask didn't track him down, because the Sionis crime family never forgets, and he couldn't just pass the job on because someone else would die for it. Hobbes was clever enough for a normal guy; a couple minutes after me, he was already going through the possible outcomes. I had already gone through about fifty. Anxiety does that to a mind.

"Yes. " I sighed, smearing my hand over my mouth, hoping to wipe away my next words. "Which is why you're going to trade my life for yours."

* * *

More people came in to my office that day, and endless stream of hopeful faces. I gave them all their fortunes, and today, I did it for free. One of my regulars, a dark Italian type named Nathanael frowned at me.

"You okay, miss?" He rumbled awkwardly, his deep voice unused to the tones of concern. "You don't seem to hot, and you ain't been takin' any money, that's why I came by. I appreciate havin' my fortune told and all, but nobody does nothin' for free in the Narrows." He scowled "Not unless they were forced to." My face, which I had not realized had been devoid of expression, split in to a smile, and it felt good.

"I'm okay, Nate, thanks for asking. Just a trying to drum up customers." He leaned back, slightly mollified, but clearly still concerned. Still, he played along.

"Ahhh!" He said, winking playfully and tapping his nose "That's marketing, that is! I'm sure tomorrow ye'll be hittin' us for 100 dollars instead of just ninety,eh? Make all that money back." He waggled his eyebrows conspiratorially and got up to leave.

"Something like that…" I muttered glumly as the door out in the building's darkened hall slammed shut behind him. I had a moment to ponder how lonely my existence was, that the only people who were ever concerned were bad guys to everyone else- and that the only intelligent conversation I'd had in a long time came from my own diary. And the writer was a chump. I didn't have time to think long on how I'd spent my life before the door was opening again and there were footsteps in the hall. I took a deep breath and readied myself for the next customer.

The cigarette now fell out of Hobbes' mouth.

* * *

 **"What? Girlie, I ain't doing that. Hows about this;" He jumped in, thinking fast "I just tell the boss this info as though I came upon it at work."  
**

I sighed and thought about how to explain clearly why that was not a good strategy.

* * *

I didn't bother looking up as the newest Thug walked in, wishing I could open up my thermos of Early Grey tea already. Heck, I'd drink a wheat grass monstrosity if it would make this headache go away.

* * *

"It's not just your boss that is going to be after us… there's someone worse."

Hobbes frowned, "Worse?" He grunted, doubt coloring his voice. Nobody was slimier than Roman Sionis.

"Smarter." I amended. "Sionis will believe you, but the Broker won't."

Hobbes paled; good he knew who I was talking about. that would make things simpler.

"If he's anything like me he'll spot a lie as easily as I spotted a spy when you walked in my front door. He'll hunt me down, and he'll kill you for lying. This way, you have something to bargain with before the choice is taken from you, and this way, I have a chance of surviving."

"Surviving? From the description yer giving me, he'll tear you apart."

I smiled humorlessly at him; the protective tone in his voice was a reassuring reminder that I was doing the right thing.

"Listen, the position we're in right now gives us leverage. Any other move will not; if you leave town you may get away, though I doubt it, but he'll start investigating what you've been up to, and he'll find me. If you give him the information for free, you won't have leveraging power, and I won't either. My goal before was not being noticed, now it's saving your family. I can't view being noticed as a failure or I'll lose this game- I need to use it to my advantage. So we play a Queen's Gambit- I push my two pawns forward, and if he takes it, then out comes the Queen. Make sense?"

"No." He snarled.

"Trust me. I'm going to bargain with the Broker... and I'm going to live."

And that, as they say, was that.

* * *

Someone cleared their throat, I looked up, and immediately my jaw dropped.

Good thing I got rid of the drugs today.

I was expecting a Thug, or an agent of the Broker to come into my office, I was expecting danger and dudes who broke the damn law. I even had calculated the probability that Sionis got to me before the Broker (it was low).

The one thing I had not predicted were _the goddamn_ ** _police._**


	4. I do not yearn for lovelier lands

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters of the Batman franchise, except for my own additions.

* * *

 _" **Curiosity** will conquer fear even more than bravery will."_

 _James Stephens_

* * *

 _"_ _Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over the world's most boring interrogation room…"_

Interrogation rooms are some of the best-thought out rooms in a police station. Police officers and detectives invest a lot of time making sure the rooms are as claustrophobic, dreary, and miserable as possible- grey concrete, metal tables, and cold air constantly blowing in. Tactically, their insane investment into the freak-shui of the awful chamber was admirable; you grab a criminal fresh from the streets, and they're already telling themselves that you aren't going to get anything out of them. They're mentally prepared to go right into the interrogation,rehearsing their answers during the drive to the station.

But instead of a punch to the face and a red-faced cop shouting about where the money is hidden, they get left _here_. The Interrogation Room.

Voices and footsteps sounded briefly in the hall outside; I didn't bother opening my eyes. It was only hour three of waiting.

"There came out in the halls a _tapping_ , as if some fatass pig was yakking, yakking by my chamber door."

After the first hour of waiting to see a cop, you're still not going to say anything- you are still prepared to go to jail for your friends. But now the adrenaline has worn off, and the anxiety begins to build.

A door opened somewhere in the distance, and laughter echoed for a moment in the corridor outside. Probably some more corrupt cops, taking a long lunch break- two of them had shown up at my door this afternoon _(was it this afternoon? There wasn't a clock in here)_. They refused to answer my questions; didn't even bother reading me my rights. Everyone present knew I didn't have any; this was Gotham.

The double sided mirror that sat on the wall across from me reflected only my tired eyes, and shadows moving by the door behind me. Another tactic- I had to see my guilty face for the following hours. After the second hour, the metal chair starts to dig into your ass, but with your hands cuffed to the table, there's not much you can do.

" 'Tis some pig' I muttered, 'yakking by my chamber door. Only this and nothing more.' "

At the turn of the third hour, the average criminal begins to feel their doubts. They tell themselves that they still won't give anything away, but inside, a tiny voice wonders 'is this what prison will be like?'. And the cold starts to set in.

There was no guilt on my conscience. Just annoyance. Whoever the Broker was, they had strong ties with the GCPD. It would certainly explain their resources, the hidden nature of their networks. Unlike most information gatherers, the Broker was known for rarely using men, and if he/she did, these men never gave it away. People were terrified of the Broker. That was what weighed on my conscience, here, in the Chamber of Fuckups. Fear.

 _Tap... Tap… Tap._

A louder sound this time, coming from inside the room. Slow, deliberate, ominous.

 _Tap... Tap...Tap._

I opened my eyes only to come fact to face with my mirrored self. She vibrated with the sound of every tap. Someone was knocking on the other side of the mirror. _Someone who'd been listening._ On rainy days, my hobby is pinning insects. I take needles and spread their wings out, and pin everything down for examination, counting each leg and 'tutting' at every imperfection. It was just shy of dissection.

I felt like one of my bugs.

A policeman, come to interrogate me, would not do this. This was taunting, mocking, _creepy._ The sound of the intercom hissed on, crackling slightly, but silence filled the room.

There was a long pause, as whoever it was on the other side let me know that they were there, watching, and yet silent.

I knew whose voice I was about to hear, though I had no idea what face they wore.

" _Nevermore._ " Said the Broker.

* * *

Edward Nashton rarely sat in on interrogations in the GCPD. There was no need; the only way to catch a cyber criminal was through their paper trail- by the time they were being taken in, there was no need to ask them anything- Edward had already collected enough evidence for a full conviction, and then some. Still, he knew the strategies interrogators employed to get a confession; when the cops he'd bribed to pick the girl up had returned to tell him she was waiting in Interrogation Room #4, he had simply nodded and waved them away.

He took the following two hours to look up everything he could find about the Player he now knew as one Tayna Nabokov. Domestic complaints in her childhood, majored in Game Theory in college, with a minor in Computer Science; a promising degree, yet after graduation she had effectively dropped off the map. She filed her taxes under "Babysitting pay", and only ever deposited what he calculated to be five percent of her actual cash income into the bank. Who knows where she put the rest of it; he hadn't the time to root out any offshores accounts.

For the final hour, he watched her, trying to figure out what had made someone who was so _dull_ on paper into such an elusive enemy.

She seemed just as unimpressive in person. Tayna was dressed like the world's messiest stoner, which was unfortunate, because it simply did not fit. Her hair wasn't in long dreads (in fact, her hair was too short for any form of hairstyle except 'messy'), and her gaze was eerily sharp. And her fingernails were clean. No, if she ever did drugs, it was rarely. The baggy clothes only served to make her look more awkwardly long-limbed than she was. 'Germanic' Edward thought, giving her the once-over. He made note of her white-blond hair and pale eyes and nodded to himself 'Definitely Germanic'. Tayna Nabokov's face was not astoundingly attractive- her lips were thin and her cheekbones were so sharp that she looked more like a wide-eyed lizard than a woman.

Seeing her manner of dress had been even more intriguing; from her long-ago deleted (but archived) social media account, Edward knew that in school she had dressed cleanly and sharply, often wearing eccentric but well-fitted outfits. In those pictures she'd looked… much better than she did now. Whoever she was, she was adroit at flying under everyone's radar.

Everyone's radar save for Edward Nashton's _._ After giving her his full assessment, he then decided to use the remaining half hour to work on the New York Times Sunday crossword. The silence dragged on comfortably for him, as he finally found the peace to work uninterrupted by any of his subordinates.

Her shattered that peace- it was a clear voice that came out in a bored drawl, it sounded as though she were reciting the Raven, by Edgar Allen Poe, yet with a rather vulgar twist. Edward's mouth curled, stuck between a genuine smile and a genuine sneer.

Still, it was as good a moment as any to make his entrance.

* * *

The Broker didn't say anything else. We sat in silence for a long moment; I felt utterly helpless, alone, and watched. That policeman freak-shui had done its' work.

This was unacceptable; pride stiffened my spine and made me glare defiantly into the mirror.

 _I_ was the one who played mind games, I was _never_ played with, and here I was, a mouse under a big cat's paw. The pressure was on; I knew he had made a move and I was unsure what game were we playing- was it chess? Was it chicken?

Anger flooded my system.

I had to take control of the situation, Tayna the frightened girl took a step back, and Tayna the Player took a step forward. I had to take the lead, or fall behind.

What did I know? My mind whirled. First there was his voice, it was not deep, but it was definitely male. It had a smooth and refined quality to it, without any accent. So he wasn't just smart, he was well educated.

Not enough. What about his behavior?

His behavior was taunting, and manipulative. Even though he already had the upper hand, he'd made me wait three hours then proceeded to tease me. This showed an irrational need to display superiority. I was closer to him than any other broker had been before, and had been given more clues than any person in this city as to whom the Broker was- this meant he was arrogant.

I smirked a little, but it didn't put a stopper on my bubbling anxiety. Whoever the Broker was, it was very likely that he was smarter than me. His hubris and his need to prove himself were the only two things I had above him.

Like many, he had underestimated me; I only hoped it would be enough for me to escape him.

It was time to make my move.

"What do you want?"

There was barely a pause before the intercom crackled to like- letting loose a derisive chuckle into the room.

 _"We don't want anything, Miss Nabokov, we know who you are."_

I raised an eyebrow. ' _We_?'. Whoever the Broker was, he didn't just have influence with the police, he _was_ the police! More importantly, that's who he wanted me to think was talking.

So he didn't know that I'd deduced him to be the Broker. 'I can use that.'

"And who am I?"

There was a chuckle, then, low and derisive. It sounded like it had rumbled straight out of my opponent's belly. I straightened my spine and ignore how it made me feel. I'd played this game before, though never with such high stakes. The goal of any interrogation is to discover how much data the subject holds- there is only one flaw- in doing so your questions reveal how much information you possess. The trick to being interrogated is to give nothing away while learning exactly how much the enemy has. The easiest way to do this was to stick to only asking questions.

 _"You are the hacker and cyber criminal known online as Pulse/Spill. We know all about your operations both on and offline. The network nodes associated with your online persona are currently under investigation; by tomorrow, there will be sufficient evidence for a conviction."_

"Conviction for what? I am not Pulse/Spill."

Another laugh, this time it was genuinely amused- though mocking. Despite the seriousness of the situation, my lips twitched- perhaps I was hysterical, but I had the urge to giggle myself. I hadn't been shot in the head, yet, so that was a plus. And I wasn't bored, which was even more of a plus.

 _"If you're not Pulse/Spill, why do I have a file saying you are?"_

The question sounded innocent; he was talking to me in a patient tone- like I was a stupid kid who'd decided she wasn't going to school today. Unconsciously, I snarled. This guy was a button-pusher. A couple minutes in he'd already covered both scaring and annoying the piss out of me. Still, I wouldn't allow my act to be shaken.

"How should I know; maybe you're stupid and listened to the wrong guy?" I snarked, glaring testily at myself in the mirror.

That was his cue- as though he'd been watching for an emotional reaction, the Broker jumped in for the kill. The voice coming through the intercom deepened into a menacing snarl, one that bordered on animalistic. It sent a shiver down my back that I could not describe.

 _"I'm sure you think you're very **clever** , but do you really think we would have brought you in without any **evidence?** "_

I blinked, something tugged at my subconscious. Something he'd just said was important.

 _Evidence._

If the Broker was powerful enough to work with the police, then there was no reason for him not to kill me right here. But he was arrogant, and he wanted to prove his superiority. There was no reason for him to kill me when he could make me hang myself… With what? Ah. Of course- we were in an _interrogation_ room. he wanted a confession.

He wanted me arrested, dragged out in public. _Shamed_. And he wanted me to do it all to myself. What Player worth their salt gets captured by an organization as corrupt and poorly run as the GCPD? On their own confession? None.

Knowing that he had no evidence _should_ have thrilled me, but it didn't. It made him… less human. he didn't want me dead, that would be too normal- he wanted me _defeated._ Any normal Player at this point would consider my capture a win- I'd be eliminated as an opponent with my death or arrest. But the Broker was not satisfied with my capture, he wanted to win.

We who deal in knowledge often refer to the trade and movement of data as 'the Game', or as a race. But nobody in their right mind actually thinks of it that way- who would? When you take away all the machinations, it's people's lives and reputations that are on the line.

But his need to actually have me _lose_ meant that he thought of the whole thing like a true game. As though the whole world of information and human life was just a puzzle to be unlocked.

Goosebumps prickled across my arms that had nothing to do with the cold. I was unnerved.

 _"What's the matter, Nabokov? Cat got your tongue?"_

As the evening had progressed, the Broker's tone had become less and less like an impersonal policeman and more and more like a manic child. I took in a shaky breath, and tried to achieve the state of mind I'd held on to before. Tried to tell myself I was dealing with a human being and not the mysterious Broker. It kind of worked. Sort of.

"No." I sighed, feigning boredom. "I just realized you don't have any evidence, and I'm wondering why I've wasted my time here."

A crackling silence.

Since I'd revealed part of what I knew, he was clearly processing that I was smarter than he'd assumed- it wouldn't be long now before he deduced I knew he was the Broker. I had to figure out _who_ he was, not just _what_ , before that happened.

 _So what did I know about him, now?_

He knew a lot about computers, and likely worked with the police. He was arrogant and desperate to prove himself. He was brilliant. What cops did I have information on that would fit that profile?

I wracked my brain for a moment.

...

...

...Nothing.

Still, I had to come up with something or I was going to die. Desperately I thought for a moment about the Broker I knew- the one who left no trail, and realized I was going about this the wrong way. He was like me, he _thought_ like me- and he'd been slipping under the radar- like me.

I needed to think about people in the police department who I had _nothing_ on, who left _no_ trail, who were squeaky clean.

 _He must work in the Cyber Crimes Division._

Before I could finish that line of thought he interrupted, his voice dropping from the mocking joviality from before into another menacing growl. He sounded feral.

 _"You think you're so smart, hmm? I've looked at your file, Nabokov, and I saw your records. Not a very nice home life, huh? Did you think because you went to a nice school that you were somehow suited for crime? That you'd get away with it? I've personally arrested hundreds of hackers that were twice as good as you. You probably did this because nobody would hire someone as **damaged** as you."_

There was venom in his tone- this man was going for blood. Luckily, there wasn't a thing he could say that upset me. I wasn't some sad little heroine who couldn't get over her shitty past- I was mature enough to have long ago gotten over obsessing over silly things. But the viciousness with which he was digging through my history was alarming- people usually use what would hurt them to try and get at other people. Whoever this guy was, he thought the past was something worth getting riled up about.

 _"-_ _The only thing **I'd** hire you for is serving my **coffee**! __You are no better than a drone, Ms. Nabokov, a bee who does not work for its' queen- useless._ _"_

I couldn't help it. I knew he was dangerous, and definitely unstable, but I laughed.

 _"What… **What is it?** "_

"Well, that depends on what kind of bee you're talking about." I replied, but not unkindly. I shouldn't have; he was definitely smarter than me, and if he hadn't given himself away, I'd probably have ended my day rotting in a jail cell. Edward Nashton of the GCPD Cyber Crimes Unit scoffed through the intercom at me. Who else in the CCD had the power to hire someone to fetch his coffee?

"What." It wasn't a question, and it was said in a tone that was lucid, and sharp. I hadn't heard this voice before- now it was as though he were truly paying attention to me. The watched feeling I'd had before intensified. Despite having the endgame in sight, I gulped. "Well," I rambled on, not sure of what I was doing "Insects of the superfamily Apoidea, which most people know as 'bees', are a widely diverse group of animals! Some bees do, in fact, form colonies with queens- like their cousins, the ant. Some however, are almost entirely eusocial- that means solitary- such as the Euglossus bee- commonly known as the orchid bee..."

I heard a soft exclaimation come from the other end of the intercom. It sounded eerily like wonder. I tried not to think about it- I tried not to think about anything as I continued."

"If you meant, by chance, the European honey bee… well then a worker who works for no queen really is quite useless, but for the majority of bees, I would be a healthy individual."

There was a cavernous silence- I took the initiative and ran with it.

"If you let me go, we can both go our separate ways, and forget this ever happened."

A few more more seconds, and he scoffed, but when he spoke his tone was gentler, more thoughtful- though it still dripped with condescension. It seemed as though he was honestly considering it.

 _"Very **cute,** my dear, but it simply isn't to be. If you will not tell me what I want to hear, then I will merely put you in jail, anyway."_

"No doubt that would ruin me." I agreed. "We both know that someone who is removed from the playing field for any amount of time falls behind, loses momentum, and has to start from the beginning again, if they don't just give up. Information goes obsolete _so_ fast."

I struggled to lean forward, eyes looking about two feet above my own reflection's head; where I imagined my Opponent's eyes to be.

"But let me give you a counter offer, Broker. You let me go."

Another scoff, but now there was a growing edge to his tone.

 _"Accusing me of being this 'Broker' won't change your situation I'm afraid, I am still the one with the power."_

I smirked. There was a hint of doubt in his tone- he was beginning to realize his folly in underestimating me. He was right to assume he was the smarter between us, but a fool to presume that meant I was _stupid_.

"Sure. But if you send me to prison, I'll get a lawyer. You may be able to pay off or blackmail a judge, and I may very well end up in prison, but in the meantime, I'll be taking Edward Nashton of the GCPD to court, under accusation of invading my privacy, threatening my friend, and generally being a dick to me." I leaned back as far as the handcuffs on my table would let me. "And of being the Broker."

Boom.

That, kids, is how the Interrogation Game is _played_.

The intercom clicked off, and there was silence from the other room. I wouldn't win that court case, but it would throw suspicion on his operations. The investigation itself would slow him down, and with the amount of power he had gathered in recent months, I had no doubt there was something he wanted done without interruptions. Well, arresting me would be a HUGE interruption.

One neither of us could afford. He had been playing to win- I knew I couldn't beat him. In a game of chess, if you can't beat your opponent, the second best thing was a stalemate.

Well, this was our stalemate.

 _But what if I'd guessed wrong?_ As the silence stretched, I became increasingly sure that I'd either made a huge miscalculation, or won our match with a daring gambit.

He never responded to confirm or deny my worries. After an hour, the same two policeman who arrested me simply uncuffed me and kicked me to the curb. It was night time out, and nearly Christmas, but strangely, one of them handed me a jacket- not the kind meant for the winter, but the kind someone wore to the office. It was a dark green, and smelled of something expensive. I didn't question it- they'd arrested me before I could even grab a coat.

"No ride home, then." I muttered, and glowered up at the GCPD- in the lights of one of the windows, a tall silhouette was standing with their hands clasped behind their back. I knew, instinctively, who it was. We stared at each other for a long moment, two Opponents marking each other from across the chess board.

After a beat, I realized who the jacket belonged to. Before you say 'awwww', let me tell you; it was not a sweet gesture.

After all Edward couldn't have me freezing to death before he killed me himself.

I slipped the jacket on and broke our staring match. It was time to go home.


	5. I dread the dawn's recurrent light

_I'm going to have to unpack my things._ I thought numbly. The shadows were getting long and orange on my wall. I forgot when I'd come home, or when I'd sat on my couch. One box was already unpacked- though most of its' contents lay spread around me, one thing sat neatly in my lap. A palette of pinned bees sat before me - _Euglossa hansoni_. Orchid bees.

They were green.

 _First there was his voice, it was not deep, but it was definitely male. It had a smooth and refined quality to it, without any accent._

I got up abruptly, knocking my carefully collected arthropods to the side in my hurry to get to the sink. Cold, cold water ran from my taps; I splashed it on my face, and then again. The colder the water, the better. When you are in an excited state- it will engage the mammalian diving reflex and pull you out of it. True to form I felt my eyes refocus and my heart restart. I made eye contact with myself in the mirror, knowing, dreading, what I would see there.

 _There was a chuckle, then, low and derisive. It sounded like it had rumbled straight out of my opponent's belly._

 _"Nevermore."._

I should have been _terrified_. I should have been so scared my knees could start their own percussion band. The Broker was a _horror_ \- I could hear it in his tone, during those brief moments where it lost it's cultivated edge and became rabid with… something _else_. He was obnoxious and rude and he had _threatened my life_. Very rarely did people escape him, and even more rarely did they match wits with him. I couldn't say I'd done either, yet; I got the sense he was still miles ahead of me, laughing back at me as I trudged stupidly behind. But my emotions concerning what he was were faint, background noises. Their voices were dull to me, like the hiss of that infernal intercom had drowned the rest of my life out.

 _Despite the seriousness of the situation, my lips twitched- perhaps I was hysterical, but I had the urge to giggle myself. I hadn't been shot in the head, yet, so that was a plus. And I wasn't bored, which was even more of a plus._

My reflection stared back at me, green eyes alit;I looked like I had just come home from a one night stand- my light hair, usually kept so short that nothing could muss it, was sticking up at odd angles. My pupils were dilated, and my cheeks were flushed. My lips were parted as though for a kiss. As happened with any young lady, my normally unremarkable face was aglow with enchantment. There wasn't a bit of fear- I was _excited_. I _hated_ that I was, but there the fact stood; as clear as my reflection.

The truth was that the Broker was not a person I liked so far, but that it also didn't matter. The second he had started our confrontation, he had become something _greater_ than a person. He had become an Opponent- _a problem_. My life was in danger, and the despicable truth was that I _loved_ it. I knew that the foreseeable future would have me locked under the watchful eye of a powerful enemy, that he'd be waiting for me to make a mistake, _and I was ecstatic._

That thought alone sobered me. I looked into the mirror and saw fear in my eyes where once there had been elation. I was not afraid of the Broker, no.

I was afraid of myself.

Edward Nashton was furious. He had been caught entirely off guard today- and it was taking up precious headspace. Headspace he needed to outwit the Bat. Someone had managed to find a fault in one of his riddles, and _they'd been right_! Never mind that it was hardly a riddle, it was a question asked by _him_ , the Broker! How come he hadn't known that about bees? How could a little thing like that, that _girl_ find the _gall_ to tell him something he didn't already know!?

He inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth. His palms were sweaty and his heart raced; he knew the signs. It was the feeling he got when someone he was trying to arrest had done something vexing and inexplicable, like disappearing from the internet completely, or moving out of his sphere of influence. It was the feeling he got when the Sunday crossword had a formatting mistake, and he spent hours trying to find the answer when there wasn't going to _be_ one, because some _imbecile_ had forgot to double check their work! It was the feeling he got when he found a riddle in some old library book on puzzles, one he'd never seen before.

People who live in their heads have little problem breaking past the trappings of emotion. Passions like hate or vengeance rarely grip them like they do a smaller mind (though they are powerfully strong emotions, when they do). It was afflictions of _reason_ that rational beings like Edward Nashton had difficulty avoiding. There were the quantifiers; instruments of reason used to measure out the world into 'less' or 'more'- these were superiority, inferiority, pride, and ambition. These were gripping in their own right, to be sure, and vices that the Broker frequently indulged in.

But it was the other kind of rational affliction, the one he had no choice to indulge in, but was rather _compelled_ by, that would always be his bane. These were the symptomatic afflictions- sensations and ideas that were unavoidable to anyone with half a mind to experience them. Curiosity, boredom, engagement, and worst of all; _fascination_.

On his way home, it wiggled into the checkerboard workings of his strategic mind as he'd attempted to turn his thoughts to hacking one of the city's GNC towers. It buzzed at his ears, gleaming green and shiny as he'd snapped orders at his various spies over the phone. As he rounded the corner to the street that held the local library, it had itched at his feet. Fascination had itched and _itched_ his feet- until they walked up the library's marble steps, instead of walking him by, like he had intended for them to do.

Now he was in his current sleeping quarters, wires strewn about him like a bird's nest. He should have been finalizing his Christmas plans. He should have been contemplating on the identity of this new 'Bat-man' the criminals had gotten so frothy over. He should have been doing any number of things that his superiority, inferiority, pride, and ambition were all screaming at him to be doing.

But fascination had won, _and so he read about bees._


	6. I hate to go to bed at night

**A/n: Sorry for the hiatus, but I fell down the Supernatural hole and couldn't get back up. Someone call LifeAlert. I don't own anything, just my brain. Thank you kindly for the reviews!**

* * *

I went back to work. What else was I going to do? The Broker stayed away from me, though I knew I hadn't frightened him. I now knew something that clenched my gut in anxiety when I tried to chase sleep.

We were alike. Well, at least in the ways that counted.

It was sickening to think about, but it made it's own kind of sense. After all, the more logical you are, the more limited in diversity your rationality becomes. We were far from the same, ethically, personally, and creatively, but rationally we thought similarly.

In short, I'm not stupid, and neither was he.

But the Broker and I had more in common than that, as much as I hated the idea of being kin to someone so amoral.

We were both afflicted by curiosity. The one thing that can derail a rational mind. It was a compulsion.

Compulsion. It was my weakness, and I knew for a fact it was his.

With that in mind, I began to research him. The Broker was no longer a shadowy figure working against me in the dark, he was a man, with weaknesses. A man with a name.

My initial search led me only to what I already knew. GCPD, cyber crimes yadda yadda yadda… but I had to go deeper. I knew that data would be protected. For all my pride I knew that Edward Nashton was far more careful, more _meticulous_ than I was. His background would be hidden from prying eyes, amateur hackers- basically from anyone hired by investigators to track him down.

But the government only hired white hats. Hackers working on the side of the angels. They didn't do what black hats and red hats did- they just worked on securing information.

Basically, they were piss poor hackers, because they couldn't break the law. And what's a Player without a challenge?

 _Nothing_ , my mind supplied, and I thought back to my confrontation with Mr. Nashton. My challenge.

I was a redhat, a hacker who worked for their own benefit. Blackhats were hackers who intentionally worked against other people. It was a thin line, but one I did my best to maintain.

Right now, I was toeing the border. I rarely invaded someone's privacy as much as planned in invading Nashton's, but _he had started it first_!

So I dug deeper than a 'good guy' investigator would. Everything on the net was gone, erased. There were files, of course, from the GCPD background checks they run on all potential employees, but I quickly realized that he had completely deleted any of those files. There were archives- everything on the Internet is archived- or at least, a sizeable chunk of it. If you know where to look, you can find a little snapshot taken on a day that whatever you're looking for still existed- hadn't been erased. The normal nets archives of his personal information were gone- wiped clean.

But then there was the Dark Net. Unlicensed, unlisted pages. Many of those websites were hard to hack, because they changed IP addresses constantly- they set up server after server, bounced around their signal till no white hat would ever know which way was up. Why all the secrecy? Because the dark net was a black market- for drugs, child pornography, assassins… anything evil and slimy and illegal you can think of someone anonymously buying was there, on the dark net.

The dark net had its own archives, and Nashton had forgotten them. To be fair, he was expecting whoever to check on him to be someone in the employ of some form of justice system- so basically an idiot.

He never saw me coming.

In the months and the years to follow, he would learn to be more cryptic, to be more monstrous, but in the moment that I had found him, combed my fingers through his history and picked out all those nasty details, he was still a man.

And so I got to know Edward Nashton, the man. I knew that's what would keep me alive in the months to come. Everyone else made the mistake of falling to the hype- the Broker- capital 'B'! Not a man but an omniscient figure.

I saw Edward the man.

An abusive father, a weak mother- my knowledge of psychology kicked in. He probably thought of women as the weaker sex, simply because one of them had failed at the basic duties a mother was expected to perform. Protection.

And then there were men- men like his father, opponents to be bested and destroyed. His school records were _almost_ squeaky clean- for most of his adolescent and college years, he kept his head down and flew under the radar as a quiet genius. But when he was younger there had been some… disturbances.

' _Disruptive behavior_ ' wrote one teacher. ' _Good job on winning the puzzle contest_!' wrote another ' _But please try to be nicer to the other students_.'.

That little boy, I knew, revealed more about the man to come than any of his high school or college years. By then he'd learned to fit in perfectly, to go unnoticed while quietly going about his business. I'd bet my life that outside of these background checks and school records, a number of 'accidents' had happened to students known for bullying. ' _Disruptive behavior_ ' was the truth- Edward Nashton the squeaky-clean student was not.

And this little bit about the puzzle contest. For the entirety of his scholastic career, Nashton had not stood out. Every time there was a competition, he chose not to participate.

Nearly twenty years ago, there had been a puzzle competition, and he had won. What did that mean? I was beginning to see the bigger picture. Edward the man understood the rationality behind flying under the radar, it appeared to be a lesson he'd learned right after that puzzle contest. Too early to be a compulsion a child- even a bright one- would arrive at without help. ' _Bullies_ ' I thought grimly, remembering with distaste my own childhood lessons.

But Edward the child had entered that competition, and that child craved recognition, and that was more the truth.

I now knew everything about Edward Nashton that could be seen on paper. When he had combed through my history, he had combed through the facts- when I combed through his, I got a sampling if the _story_.

So, simplified, my finding were as follows.

Edward was a formidable opponent, who knew a lot about me, but had perhaps overlooked the emotional side.

I had not overlooked this side. This showed a clear difference in priorities, but more significantly- I was at a psychological advantage.

Edward craved recognition. He brought me into that interrogation room- closer than anyone has ever been- to see the fear on my face- to beat me. And so many years ago, he had entered into that puzzle competition.

Edward had been bullied, by his father and by his schoolmates. The psychological effects of this are well known- not even he was immune to this. The majority of these effects I held great pity for- loneliness, isolation, helplessness and sadness. And inability to connect to others. These things I had experienced firsthand.

But it was the other effects that had me worried. Sometimes, the child chooses to _become_ a bully, instead of always being helpless. For them, it is the only way for them to take back control.

And finally, he was compelled, he couldn't help himself, couldn't stop the Game. I knew I was the same. It was everything to me- the endless cycle of fascination fighting boredom

And it was even more to him, given what my research was saying.

He could not help but pursue me, and that was worrying.

People often talk about how they had 'no choice' when they do something awful, or wrong, or just plain stupid. They speak of the circumstances, how their hand was forced or how someone 'made' them do it. It is a symptom of an exploit in the human mind- a backdoor into someone's brain that subverts their better sense. It has been studied rigorously, and yet it continues to rule our waking lives. It has been used to start wars, commit genocide, and cause ordinary human beings to become extraordinarily monstrous.

Simplified, it is this; we hate freedom.

We do.

We despise the idea that the only person responsible for every mistake, every misplay, every harmful thing we've ever done is _ourselves_. That nobody forced us, nobody 'made' us to commit murder or harm ourselves- that it is only us, and our choices. The worst another person can do is make one option seem prettier than the other, like 'Hurt this prisoner, or I hurt you'. We tell ourselves lies so that the blame rests on another's shoulders. This is why authority works. Why armies work. Why evil persists. It isn't one man choosing to do wrong, it's another man telling someone else to- and being obeyed.

And the more we do it, the more we subconsciously hate our freedom. It represents the truth, and therefore our guilt.

But we never know how much of a gift freedom is until it is truly taken away. You don't choose what you are born to, for instance. You don't choose your parents, or your genetics. Some people's genetics make them predisposed towards insanity.

Insanity manifests itself in a number of ways, but one of its' basic weapons against the mind is compulsion. When a schizophrenic says that the devil made him do it, he isn't lying. Compulsion is irresistible to madmen of all kinds- even people who aren't crazy, just damaged. You can be compelled to be depressed- the neuroreceptor serotonin, linked to happiness, vanishes from your bloodstream. When this happens, parts of your brain linked to the control of fight-or-flight responses and emotional regulation stop producing new neurons- they stop learning, and can even regress. As a result you become prone to emotional outbursts of either anger or fear- as your brain seeks to defend itself from perceived threats that it is no longer capable of perceiving.

More importantly, though, you stop remembering happiness. "My life has always been awful" isn't just an exaggeration for a person who is clinically depressed. To them, it is the truth.

Serotonin, the chemical released with every smile, laugh or joyful moment, acts as a 'label' to your brain's filing system. But when you no longer have it, those files are lost. Your brain can go looking everywhere for happy memories, and come up empty handed. As though they never existed at all. So a depressed person is compelled to feel despair, looking back on their life and seeing only pain, or at best, boredom. Even if they know these facts, they have almost no choice but sorrow.

So when I say that Edward Nashton is compelled to do what he does, I want you to understand the full meaning of what I am saying. That moment in the interrogation room from Hell, when his voice became rabid and he attacked me with his words, I realized he was compelled. Not just to win, but to utterly delete me- my accomplishments, who I was. He was someone who didn't play chess- he played a game of total war. But he didn't do it publicly- he didn't care if other people saw my defeat. I knew this, because many of those he bested simply died in 'accidents'. He needed to prove it to himself. That is why it scared me.

You see, I understand compulsion very well, because it is my exploit. The backdoor into my mind. And now I knew that the Broker understood it too, and that was terrifying. It meant that if for a moment I let it show, that I had… compulsions… that Edward would see it. Which means he could weaponize it.

Knowing all this but not seeing a clear line of attack was hell. It meant that I had to wait for him to make the first move.

So I went back to work. What else could I do, but carry on?

The weeks plodded on, and I became bored. I never realized that my life was boring. I had the Game, my own little games to play- but now it was, and it was all Nashton's fault.

Never more would I be satisfied being the big fish in the little tank, because now I had an Opponent.

And it was everything.


	7. Greetings, Maggots

Greetings, maggots.

I have returned! Which means I have once more decided to rule over you as a cruel and capricious god.

However.

I need you. America needs you. Not really, but I still need you. I am recruiting minions to help me with my stories.

You see, I am great at beginnings, when the world is new and I'm still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. But once it comes time for the middle, the meat of my hamburger, I get a little lost. Why can't I just get to the plot points I want? What is this character development thing? I have so many plot points, so much character development in mind, but for some reason I just can't get there. SO, I have an outline, I have the ideas, but I need help on the execution.

THEN THERE IS YOU! YOu may be a fellow writer, with lots of ideas for the story; or you may just be a lurker, who loves fanfiction and has an imagination.

Whoever you are, shoot me a message. I'm getting a team together. We're gonna do group messages or something and you're going to harass me about updating. It'll be great. I'll be annoying. And working hard sometimes. BUT WE'LL GET THERE TOGETHER!

So. Let's do this.

Message me, slaves.


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